


something more delicate

by doublejoint



Category: One Piece
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27638744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: Kid examines the hypotheticals, for once.
Relationships: Eustass Kid/Killer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	something more delicate

**Author's Note:**

> deals with killer's self-image issues, mentions canon-typical violence

Since they were young, since Kid was nearly a head shorter than Killer, they’ve leaned back-to-back, face away from face, when they wanted or needed to. Maybe it’s partially redundant with Killer’s mask, but in enough ways that count it is his face, and--this way, things are a little more even, though Kid’s always worn his emotions on his sleeves--or rather, instead of sleeves, really, ripping off the arms on shirts and replacing them with anger and eagerness and want and focus and everything else all woven together. Even without seeing it in his face, it’s too easy to read it in his voice and in the words he chooses, his head tilted back on Killer’s shoulder, messing up his hair. 

“I want to see you smile,” Kid says, “but I want to see it when you want me to.”

And--Killer has always hated his smile the way it pulls at his cheeks and his eyes, the way his mouth looks too unnaturally big on his face, but Kid has always looked at it, before now, with a softness in his face that isn’t usually there, wasn’t there even when they were children, that would make Killer stop fighting his own face and let it be. And sometimes, he would smile unconsciously, unaware of what his mouth was doing until Kid looked back at him, reached up and touched his face, like something he wanted to hold on to. 

But if doing this had really made any difference, Killer would have done it all over again, choked down the fruit and let it take over his face and voice, if it saved his crewmates from something slightly worse. Or even if he’d known, a hundred percent, it wouldn’t, that it was a lie--some part of him would have said, but what if they were really telling the truth?

Anything, that’s always the promise they’ve made to each other. Protect the crew; when Kid’s not there to do it himself that’s always fallen on Killer, a tremendous crashing weight that Kid himself could levitate but that Killer will hoist on his shoulders, without complaint, as best he can, and most of the time it works. Sometimes, like now, he wishes he’d been stronger, that Kid wouldn’t look at him the way he does, like this is his failure, when it’s Killer’s alone. (It should go both ways, maybe; if Killer takes on Kid’s burdens, then--but no, this was Killer’s failure to carry that burden, and a failure of terrible odds that for once can’t be canceled out by hacking through them with a blade.) 

Kid’s not the kind of person to be needlessly hard on himself. He doesn’t push himself that way to be better, do better; he’s got enough of a drive to do that by looking forward; he’s less concerned with the collateral damage in his wake than with the pristine fields he’s yet laid to waste, and Killer’s often the one grabbing him by the shoulders to turn him around and position his head so he gets the basic benefit of hindsight. It’s not like him to dwell on the mistakes, even when they cost him, and Killer wants to tell him to just fucking stop, except he can barely say that much through his laughter. So he bites it back and tries to steady his face, slow his breathing. 

There is something a little deeper, buried a little under the surface; Killer can see it’s there but not what it is, exactly the reason is that Kid’s upset with himself. He’s close to it, he thinks; it’s obviously about all this, but that’s vague, and this needs to be cut with precision, something more delicate than Kid would admit exists in his mind.

* * *

At least they’re in a position now where they can attack the cause of their troubles the way they usually do. There are no aliases, no sitting and taking things that are better than a given alternative, just fighting, with the right weapons, alongside the right people. 

It doesn’t help as much as Killer wants it to, but when you’ve been stabbed deeper you have to stab back harder, shoot more, slash and burn and raze what’s in front of you, destroy, destroy, destroy. But this time they’re not letting off steam, evening up the score with a rival; this time they’ve been cut deeper, a canyon and not a shallow creek, a wound that leaves its mark, a bright scar, new boards obviously patching up a hole in a boat.

* * *

Killer chews his lip, trying to stop himself from laughing, the urge always stronger at the worst times, when he can’t stop himself from thinking about it and his body then can’t stop turning those thoughts into impulses. He doesn’t want the sound escaping, doesn’t want it to echo in the inside of his mask and straight back to his ears. He reaches for Kid’s hand, nearly scratching his elbow on a jagged piece of scrap metal sticking out of Kid’s wrist, but he knows the sharp edges are always intentional (and how to avoid them). For all that Kid’s power appears to be massive, high-level, concerned with rearranging the largest pieces, it actually requires quite a bit of finesse and practice and patience to put together something anywhere close to a prehensile arm from all this metal. (Killer used to tease, way back when Kid was still learning, saying that this was where all the patience he’d never bothered to use before had gone, but now it doesn’t really seem so funny.) Kid’s hand is flexible, fingers open to let Killer clasp it in his, and the metal is cool but not unpleasantly so. 

“Well-assembled,” Killer says.

“Of course it is,” says Kid.

His smile is thin, lips chapped, lipstick smudged and fading. He takes Killer’s other hand, his thumb sliding across the inside of Killer’s wrist. Killer lets out a breath, and half a laugh.

“You did the right thing,” Kid says.

He has more to say; Killer waits, his fingers tapping the back of Kid’s hands. 

“I just--fuck. I don’t know if I could have done anything, even if I was there. I couldn’t have eaten that fruit, so would they just have straight-up killed you guys? Or made me do it anyway? Or if they made you do it in front of me--I couldn’t have stopped myself from going after them, and I don’t know if I would have been able to win; I don’t know if I wouldn’t have made it worse for you.”

They don’t know, because it didn’t happen like that; that’s the thing. And maybe, together, they could have fought their way through; maybe none of this would have happened. Or maybe it would have all been worse. And still, that Kid is thinking about all of these hypotheticals when he’s usually the first to say that it’s useless or irrelevant, has to mean something. Maybe that’s it, the failure, the small thing underneath it all, the miniature ball bearing sticking out at just the right place, thin and worn, that this is all full of failure even though they’d made the best choices they could, the only choices they could, in the circumstances they were in, that there’s no other way to slice it up aside from having never made the alliance in the first place. That Kid will make himself look at Killer because he has to, because it’s easy to pin this on himself, as his choice, as him letting down his crew.

“Captain,” Killer says, squeezing both of Kid’s hands, and Kid squeezes back, flesh no less tight of a grip than metal. “I made my choices. I signed up for this. We’re all still here, aren’t we?”

(They are, no matter the physical state; they’re here with their feet on this ground, still fighting with all they’ve got, at their captain’s flanks.)

“Yeah,” says Kid. “Fuck, I know, I just—”

Words aren’t adequate for what he wants to do to every single one of them who’s done wrong to any of his men, and Killer wants revenge for himself but also, it’s just a giant feedback loop, an electric charge humming louder and louder; they hurt Killer, they hurt Kid, they hurt Killer. He’ll slaughter only the ones Kid doesn’t get to first, and all of them. 

“Yeah,” says Killer. “I know.”

He can’t stop laughing now, again, but pressing his mask into the crook of Kid’s neck muffles it enough for him, for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
